HSBC business customers can now use selfies to open bank accounts

HSBC’s business clients will now be allowed to open bank accounts using facial recognition technology, as part of the bank’s strategy to speed up the application process.

Prospective clients will be asked to take a self-portrait, colloquially referred to as a ‘selfie’, which will be matched to the passport or driving licence that the client would also have to submit.

“Through simplifying the ID verification process, we’ll be able to save our business customers time and open accounts quicker,” said HSBC’s head of global propositions for commercial banking, Richard Davies.

He also added that the inherent speed of this process will lead to it becoming the go-to verification method.

HSBC already works with fingerprint technology, having integrated Apple’s Touch ID software back in February.

The bank is jumping on a hot trend that already has the likes of MasterCard and Standard Chartered very interested. The latter went as far as pledging to invest $1.5 billion in the tech over the next three years.

The market is rife for services such as HSBC’s to thrive. Not only do consumers seem to be very interested in using biometric technology, as Visa’s recent study found, but they also already have and use the tools needed – and they use them for payments already.